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Anne Coulter: It Must be You

Toronto Big news all over the Canadian papers featuring the wild mouthed commentator, author, and right winger, Anne Coulter, and her 3-city tour to speak at Canadian universities and promote her books. I imagine she is happy as a tick on a dog because of all of the publicity, but she seems to be spewing off message about Canada and why she ran into problems with an invitation to the University of Ottawa.

Her talk was canceled after an initial crowd of 1000 that then swelled to 2000 students trying to get into the smaller auditorium led to a cancellation. The night before in London, Ontario she had suggested an Islamic student who was offended by her comments about riding back there on a “magic carpet,” should “take a camel” instead. After her Ottawa rain-out, she was quoted with one slap at the university after another saying she had spoken at a 100 schools and Ottawa was “bush league.” She’s claiming she will file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission in Canada because she didn’t like being warned about “hate” speech under Canadian law.

Canada, being Canada, is now having a debate about pride in free speech, though Coulter is so far off message that she is not part of the dialogue, though I’m afraid it’s all about her.

I was at George Brown College in Toronto yesterday and then later at McMaster University in Hamilton and the day before at York University in Toronto, and felt nothing but the love. The questions at George Brown and York were to put in simply, amazing in every way and advanced the discussion and my thinking on organizing community based organizations and unions among informal workers. There was a line of students at George Brown signing with Judy Duncan to volunteer to work with ACORN Canada and one person after another from Buenos Aires and several countries in Africa trying to figure out how to expand ACORN International.

Seems if you don’t attack the diversity of Canada but actually talk to them and listen to them, there is a fierce warm glow in Canada.